


Perseverance

by louist1991



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Angst, Dom Louis, Fluff, M/M, Protective Louis, Sub Harry
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-01-10
Updated: 2015-01-11
Packaged: 2018-03-06 23:42:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3152693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/louist1991/pseuds/louist1991
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Alcohol, the elixir of life!”<br/>“Isn’t that water, Louis?”<br/>“Does water make life fun? With water, there’s sky and rain, Harry. With alcohol, there isn’t. There’s more fun, like with you, fun.”<br/>“So, you’re saying, basically, I’m the elixir of your life? I make your life fun?”<br/>“If I lose you, I lose it all. Life is life, it’s not scripted. I drink, and you hang around to keep me from going off the edge. Fun’s not felt without you here, nor without alcohol in hand.”<br/>“What if you grabbed this bottle of water from my hands, and you drank it, and I was still here, a giant ball of fun?”<br/>“Tomorrow could come today Harry for all I know, and you’d be gone, because the fun wouldn’t be here all over that bottle of water.”<br/>“Louis, if you drank water, alcohol, or milk even, the fun would still be here, whether you felt it or not, and so would I.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. One

**Author's Note:**

> Hiiii
> 
> It's Bri, (@tinysmileylouis on twitter) and I'm attempting a new fic.
> 
> Enjoy x

Chapter One

“Louis, they’re here.”

Fresh faces. Faces of fear. Faces filled with horror at the sight of mine, getting up all close to theirs and demanding that they give their all when working for me. I, Louis Tomlinson, do not provide any less than the best, my customers don’t get served bullshit quality. They walk away from this place, full of hearty food, delightful after-tastes and the desperation for another dish, on another night of course so they don’t blow.

I seem like a cunt, sure. But I’ve been in this industry for four years and I’ve already reached the peak of the career path for a chef. Innovation, desire, passion, drive, it’s all been in me since I was around ten. Football was something I enjoyed immensely as a child and when playing that; those four qualities are what I possessed and I’ll admit, I wasn’t a star player, but I persevered and got better by the game. Same goes for this lease of my life. Now, I own two restaurants, one here in the heart of Central London, _The Highflyer_ and my other situated in my hometown of Doncaster, _la Futboul._ The Donny one sounds pretty strange but I tried a French spin on football, it wasn’t too successful but the old joint has earned three chefs’ hats, mustn’t be too bad.

I heard footsteps trekking through the royal red carpets laid out on the restaurant floor, to present _The Highflyer_ as being a place of, exactly that, royalty. Also, my beloved Doncaster Rovers wear their mighty red and white strip so I needed to be reminded of the place most dear to me as I slave away at my home away from home. I say this, since technically, London is now where I reside; but Doncaster is blessed with my presence at times too and some of my happiest years were spent there, gotta love old Donny.

There they stood before me, my five bright, shiny new apprentices I’d hired to begin the start of their cooking careers. Two females and three males, all showing tremendous promise from what I’d seen at their application videos. I’d also gone around to visit them individually at their previous places of employment to see how well they carried the pressure and intense, merciless heat of the kitchen. Except, one of the males had been sick on the day so he hadn’t performed as well as he should’ve, but his submission was the best among the several thousand I’d received.

Taking slow strides, I walked up and down the line, staring at each of these young hopefuls intently. The first girl, Sandra I believed her name to be, was emitting perspiration ferociously, as though her pours were crying out to be drenched in a fountain, river or ocean of water to cool her down. Disgusting. I stood before her, hands clasped behind my back, blinking slowly, not saying a single word, and giving her a slight nod. I continued, inspecting each of these kids, thinking such horrible thoughts about how much they trembled as though I was about to whip out a knife and stab their hearts beating loud with no end. Maybe I will if they fuck up enough.

Reaching the final guy, the one who was sick on my arrival, he seemed calm. To be frank, I’m not sure if my mind was producing feelings of irritation and annoyance, threatening to soar through every inch of my anatomy and emit enough adrenalin to strangle him on the spot for showing no signs of intimidation or respect; or rather, being overwhelmed in surprise at this new reaction to my presence. I’m not so sure which way it was going, but this kid has me excited.

I backed away, not breaking any eye contact with them at all, trying my hardest not to give in and be the big softie that I was most loved for around the restaurant, the Rovers and amongst other friends of mine; family too of course. People would always comment on how kind I was to everyone, spreading my love around and doing anything I was asked. My smile was often a hit too, reeling in compliments for the brightest pearly white radiating off them, aligned and as straight as they could be. Alright, I’m being much too full of myself, I’m going to have to turn down the meter. Back to being an asshole, that’s all these kids knew of me.

“Welcome to _The Highflyer_. I’m Louis Tomlinson, head chef and restaurant owner, and the guy you must abide by for as long as you’re here, like your life depends on it.” Way to ease them in. “You’ve been selected by myself and a panel of some of my finest friends, colleagues and judges to be here and quite frankly, if you make more than three mistakes, you’re out.” They literally looked as though they’d now shit their pants, beautiful. “To be a quality asset to this industry, the ultimate addition to your demeanour is to persevere. In the heat of the kitchen, stress can blow out of proportion. Some nights, you’ll burn at least fifty steaks and make a sauce to feed a party of two hundred plus, way too thick and have to start all over. The price you pay, if you do that, is thousands of dollars in ingredients and a week or more spent taking out garbage every few minutes, by the way. If it’s a recurring issue you display, you’ll become the garbage. Now, perseverance, as I was saying, is beneficial to the best cooks of our universe. If you pipsqueaks want to reach the top, own two restaurants, have a Michelin Star to your name, selling cookbooks and having a television programme in which you’re the main face, then you can’t give up.”

“Excuse me, sir?” that one who’d intrigued me earlier was speaking up. He interrupted me. Normally I wouldn’t care, but to get the message across, intimidation is the way I see best fit, and I can’t do so unless he lets me finish my deliver.

“Excuse you? Do you believe I was quite finished?”

“Well, no, but I was just thinking, don’t you have two Michelin Stars?” his voice, so deep and lacing with this rasp, quite soothing and nothing like I’d ever heard. Focus, Tomlinson.

“If you’d let me finish, I’d be getting on to that.” I sighed, loud and clear to make certain he was aware of my irritation. “Now, would anyone else like to throw in a comment or can we all wait until I’m finished? We can go back to primary for a moment and do the classic raising of hands also, it’s your choice. Keep going? Excellent.”

Surely enough the smartass raised his hand. Oh fucking lord.

“Yes?”

“Uh, I just wanted to let you know my name is Harry Styles, I just thought you may have liked to know our names, and that maybe you’d forgotten to go around the group and ask us.” He smiled normally, as though my nature had literally no effect on him at all. To him, I was just a big ball of loveliness or something similar. Fuck it he could see right through me. Perseverance, right, that’s it.

“Well, Styles, thank you for being so informative. But that’s my role to inform and to teach you lot, that’s not an irreversible proposition. I direct, you listen. Got it?”

“Okay, got it.” Will he ever let me be a beast like I’m meant to that son of a bitch?

“Anyway, so, perseverance. That can be a term interpreted in a variety of ways, it could mean something different to all of you. To me, as your leader, the word signifies every avenue of my life, cooking and everything aside from it. You need to be strong, not only for yourself, but for everyone who surrounds you. For your loved ones, strength is protection and a sentiment of devotion. As for friends, the same. In the workplace, this devotion is in direct to your customers; they pay for the best, so you put all of your might into your cooking and persevere through each and every night and they will trust in you. Strength to me, is your ability to prevent yourself from crying under such intensity and aggravation. While you set foot in these four walls of the kitchen, you will also be devoted to each other and to the pre-existing cooks in this joint. If they approach you in utter disbelief of something you’ve done horribly wrong, you’ll listen to their orders and you will fix these mistakes. Most importantly, above all, your complete attention and strength will be on your own shoulders. Perseverance starts with you. It begins when you tell yourself, you truly accept that being a chef is what you want to do with your life and then you begin on your way to succeeding in this field. If you don’t know how to successfully achieve a golden crunch of pork crackling, the kind that could snap the strongest of teeth, then you will go home; purchase a pork and practice it until you get it right. If your chicken breast is not succulent and juicy enough to prepare one of my finest dishes, then you shall read every cook book ever produced that makes it explicit on how to do so, and you will come back into work and have that breast so moist that every other chicken will envy that one. You will persevere until you learn these basics and become a champion at preparing my inventions. I have faith in you, and you will not let me down.”

Four of the five students looked sideways at each other, exchanging words with their eyes, looking somewhat determined and alarmed, a fine mixture between the differing emotions. Glancing ahead at me, however, was none other than Harry Styles. I reckon I’m going to get along with this one quite well.


	2. Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hiiiii
> 
> New Chapter! 
> 
> Bri x

Chapter Two

Seeing these guys was like a godsend each time we decided to meet up; a common occurrence of late. Life, to put it simply, is demanding, a challenge to every individual although some of us suffer more than others. Up until now, suffering seemed like a part of my DNA, my purpose to live on this earth was simply to be neglected or to observe the testing trials of disease affecting those who I needed close in order to belong to something. Now, well, it still is, but with an extra something to keep me afloat.

Walking down the hill covered in patchy grass that had not seen a lawn mower in weeks most probably, lined with a narrow dirt track, I was taken back to my days in Cheshire; the place I lived when I was several years more youthful than my present age of eighteen. My home residence of Holmes Chapel had its countryside vibe radiating through the atmosphere, typically when I offered to mow the lawns of my neighbours for a lucrative sum of 50 pounds each weekend. Friends were at large during those years, I pretty much got along with every person in my grade, even others above or below me. Teachers didn’t mind me so much either, nor did the staff at my favourite place, Holmes Chapel Bakery. My one and only place of employment that sparked my keenest interest in cooking and convinced me to take up hospitality at school. I was set to go to college to further increase my knowledge in the subject until I was called up for my first real experience at life.

It may seem to an outsider that the brief description I just detailed of my life thus far isn’t really all that bad. Mowing lawns, having connections of friends ranging from kids younger than me to old ladies at the bakery, where I also happened to earn some extra money, achieving grades good enough to send me off to college and grabbing a new opportunity on the way. All is sweet. Except the minor details I’d skipped along the way, the daily visits to a place now regarded as my sisters’ more immediate home and the years spent sleeping with one eye open in case the man who annihilated the world surrounding myself and my mother and sister; decided to return uninvited.

“Harry!”

Three young men sat before me, each with their individual story to tell. Not one of them had originally been born and bred in London themselves, we all met by chance through making our own way here. At the present, we’ve been getting along well enough to live in the same townhouse we’d purchased through savings and some pounds our parents had insisted we put towards living arrangements. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t blow some of it on unnecessary luxuries as well, but I’m young, I’ve got time to learn from such mistakes.

Niall, the nineteen year-old blonde (dyed, not natural) had been the one to call my name upon my appearance. London to him was reasonably foreign land considering he’d entered this bizarre world in the small town of Mullingar, in the Westmeath region of Ireland. With him being so far away from such a busy lifestyle, it was my duty along with our other two mates to take him under our wing and show him the ropes, give him the 411 on how to compete with the constant movement and ever-changing circumstance of city life. It was not something that came naturally to myself, I’ll admit I too needed this moral support in becoming a resident of our nation’s capital. I’ve been outrageously lucky to have found friendship with these terrific souls.

Moving along to Zayn, the lad now shaking my hand as I sit along a log planted here for practically, certainly not comfort; has come forth to start his life in London all the way from Bradford, a town situated in South Yorkshire of Great Britain. Certainly not as far as Niall had travelled, but this experience was equally as daunting for him as any of us, only being nineteen years young himself. Leaving behind his younger sisters, mother and father, it’d been slightly more difficult helping him adjust to our new world; he could be recognised as a rather family-oriented young man. I regard myself as being the same, most definitely, however, he never really knew a life of independence like I had for several years due to my sister’s unfortunate predicament before the one he’s thrown himself into. But he’s getting there in terms of coping, slow and steady wins the race as they always say.

Looking to a north-westerly direction I observed Liam, now grinning at me as I winked and exchanged the gesture. From Wolverhampton in England’s West Midlands district; the nineteen year-old (I am in fact the youngest) had left behind a childhood of enduring the worst blows of bullying and medical complications I’d ever heard of. Automatically on hearing his struggles I felt a strong connection with him, having battled some pretty indecent shit myself, as I mentioned. Not making this all about me, Liam had been without a kidney for quite some time, meaning caution had to be taken in every avenue of his life thus far which must be fairly average, even though he promises it isn’t. Along with this, he’d had to learn self-defence in order to fend off attackers who’d thrown him shit for some reason he’d been made none the wiser of. Protecting him is now a duty and privilege of ours.

There we were, Zayn Malik, Liam Payne, Niall Horan and I, Harry Styles; sat comforted by the soft breeze now blowing across London on a fine Monday afternoon. Leaves of burgundy, gold and tangerine shades lined the ground below our Supra, Nike, Adidas and Converse covered feet; tufts of grass and most likely some weeds also showed slight movement at the current weather conditions. I knew they were all itching to ask how my first day had gone as a newly instated apprentice at one of London’s finest places to eat, so I thought it’d be cruel to keep them in suspense much longer.

“Hello guys” I smiled, trying not to give any hint of my thoughts away.

“Sooooo, how was it?” Niall responded, typical of him to have inability to ever wait a mere couple of seconds longer to be fed with gossip. Such a sticky-beak he is.

“Uh, in all honesty, pretty great” I recounted.

“You’ve got to be kidding mate, that guy, what’s his face-“

“Louis Tomlinson?”

“Yeah, Tomlinson! He’s a right wanker isn’t he?” Zayn chuckled, Liam agreeing by laughing in unison at the thought of my new boss’ television programme I often tuned into of an afternoon at four when it aired, each weekday. That wouldn’t be happening for today if we kept hanging around here.

“He’s not half bad” I offered. “Pretty decent.”

“Good looking too, am I right?” Niall winked at me, a sly smirk crossing over his features, being all too aware of my slight crush on the man. It really is nothing, he just happens to have this really glorious face and nice little body, something I had become attracted to slightly.

“Oh put a sock in it you ass” I punched his upper arm.

“Did you try to kiss his, what did you say about his nose?” Liam trailed off, looking to Zayn for assistance. They’re like identical twins who’d been separated at birth and had their appearances and heritages made completely different, yet minds thinking simultaneous thoughts at all times. Freaky.

“His ‘cute button nose, a miniscule little ski jump forming right at the very tip as the bridge and length of it sits in sublime proportion between his immaculate cheeks, structured with the sharpest of jawlines that could cut more than a butcher’s knife that’d been sharpened a hundred times over’. Very descriptive you are our friend, have you considered a career in writing once Tomlinson throws you out of his kitchen?”

“Or worse, marries you so we’d have to hear his bullshit instructions on how to cook the perfect chilli con carne every time we came over to your humble abode for a two Michelin Star feed?” Niall joined in, bursting in fits of laughter as I sat there and shook my head at the sight of those three dickheads I called my friends.

“It surprises, and alarms me how well you know of my weak moment of simply admiring the face Louis was blessed with, Zayn. How do you remember all of that?”

“I recorded it you idiot” he managed to get out after redeeming his composure.

“Isn’t it taking up valuable space on your laptop or phone that could be put to better use?” I groaned, sheer embarrassment flushing my cheeks at the thought of Zayn ever playing that video for a larger audience.

“Nah, I’ll save it for the wedding” he beamed. That larger audience I was referring to exactly.

“At least he’s a rather talented football player as well” Niall implemented back into the conversation. “He did alright when I went to watch Donny and Derby battle it out at Keepmoat a couple of years back.”

“Yeah?” I really don’t know all that much about football if I’m honest.

“Indeed, the mighty Wolverhampton Wolves took on the Doncaster Rovers last season for a friendly and Tomlinson took to the field and scored a couple. He’d be able to switch careers at any time if he’d like.” Liam recounted.

“Well he’s only young, so maybe he will.” Zayn agreed. “Anyway, aside from Harry’s root, what did everyone else get up to today?”

“I saw this gorgeous chick sitting in a café as I walked on by, she had these massive tits like I’m not kidding, double J cup I reckon.” Niall licked his lips. Utterly disgusting if you ask me. My words about Louis’ nose may have made me a bit of a sod but at least I was respectable to the man almighty.

“Is that even a thing?” Liam cocked his head slightly, legitimately confused whether Niall had made a normal remark or not. He’s a bit slow the old Payne.

“No! Fuck you’re stupid!” Zayn made this remark whilst reaching the highest volume of decibels any one human could, maybe even exceeding this level a little.

“I’m asking a very good question”

“It’s very dumb if you ask me, as if you didn’t know that double J’s don’t exist, you have sisters Liam!” Zayn whacked his head.

“So? Doesn’t mean they have double J’s!”

“Oh for fuck sake Liam, nobody has d-“

“Alright, Zayn, lay off” I laughed, rolling my eyes in direct to my Bradford born flatmate. “So, did you get her number Niall?”

“Uh, no, she’d never look twice at me” he sighed, rubbing his hands along his medium-wash denim jeans, tighter than a boa constrictor wrapping itself around the neck of a potential predator and strangling it to death. A bit extreme, but close.

“Sure she would! You aren’t half bad” I complimented.

“I’m no Louis Tomlinson though” he reminded me, smiling again. It’s like taking the piss out of me was their only hobby or amusement in life. It made me the centre of attention though, no complaints here.

“But I’m rather sure Louis is of the same sexuality as I, or so I’d like to believe, so he wouldn’t get the girl anyway. Why don’t you see if you could spot her out tomorrow and ask? Did she work there?”

“Yeah, she was wearin’ one of them black aprons like they all do.”

“Look, lads, I’d hate to break up this mothers meeting with today’s edition of confidence boosting, but would you mind if we continued this around a nice meal of fish and chips? I’m really fucking hungry and I need some sort of nutrition.” Zayn bellowed, his stomach rumbling in unison to exasperate on his need for food. Nutrition I’m not sure I can condemn with the fat and carbohydrates that filled such a meal, but I could do with a succulent, hearty hamburger.

Succulent, that word ringing in my ears from when Louis had used it to describe the chicken breast he expects us to produce for him on every occasion after our initial few week trial of cooking in the restaurant. I best make a meal based on this tomorrow so that I don’t let my new boss down do quickly. It’d kill me for such a beautiful face to ever frown.

 

 

 


End file.
